From: jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com>
On 12/21/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006(a)dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> From: "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp(a)gmail.com>
>
> On 12/21/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>> A while back I wrote about a self-publicising vanity author.
One of
>>> the details I'd liked to have
note was the complete (or near-
>>> complete)
>>> absence of his books in public library catalogues, but it's
almost
>>> impossible to actually find a way to
cite a "negative search"
much
>>> less a positive result...
>>
>> Indeed, that would end up being OR - quite simple OR, but OR all
the
>> same. It's annoying when you know
something that apparently
no-one
has
published, but there isn't much we can do about it. (Unless you
happen
to be an expert on the subject and can publish it yourself)
If that is OR then WP:NOR is a broken rule.
A citation is essentially a very simple piece of research that can
easily be reproduced by anyone without specialist knowledge.
I don't see what that can't be broadened just a bit. For example,
let's suppose a library has an online catalog... let's say an
online
catalog that's accessible to anyone. (Two
that come to mind are the
Cornell University Library, and the 16,000-volume public library of
Bergen-op-Zoom in the Netherlands... well actually it seems to be
offline but it was available a few years ago).
You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
to the search or a description of how to do the search. This
doesn't
seem very different to me from a citation.
No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
is a novel conclusion based on your own original research; this seems
so trivially obvious to me that it astonishes me that others would
claim otherwise. You might as well promote a novel claim in physics,
and point people to the calculations you have made to prove your
theory. If a reliable source says "the book is not found in the
Cornell University Library", then quote them. Otherwise, move on.
Jay.
Jay, I don't agree with everything Daniel and Steve have written
about this, but I also find your reply quite problematic. Surely
the library catalogue is the most reliable and verifiable source
for what is in the library.
Concerning negative information, consider "John Smith's latest
murder novel Killers of Wiki did not reveal the identity of the
murderer." Can't I cite the novel for that? Anyone can get
the book and verify the information, so it is reliable and
verifiable. I don't think it is necessary to wait until some
third party makes this observation about the book. (Obviously
it would be a different matter if the claim needed some actual
thinking or analysis beyond mere looking.) It seems to me that
citing a library catalogue as a source for saying that a book
is not there is fine. I can't think of why one would want to do
that in a Wikipedia article but I don't think it is illegal.
Zero.
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